Monthly Archives: December 2014

SIERRA BLANCA, TX–(Marketwired – Dec 31, 2014) – Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. (OTCQX: TRER), an exploration company targeting heavy rare earth minerals, announced today a live roadshow presentation on January 6th, 2015 in midtown New York City in relation to the Company’s ongoing rights offering. The presentation will be webcast and dial-in numbers provided for those not able to attend in person but will not be recorded or otherwise available or archived after the live presentation. Participants and dial-in guests will be given the opportunity to ask questions.

Celebrating a full 365 days in existence this year was in an interview.

“It’s not naive to think we can have that, but it is naive to think we can just sit back and get it.”

The same year that the world wide web was created, Intel set up its first Irish base in a former used-car showroom on the Long Mile Road in Leixlip, Co Kildare. The international chip-maker has invested US$12.5bn in Ireland since 1989 – averaging about US$900m per year.

Age of maturity

Waving good-bye to its twenties this year was Apple’s Macintosh computer, which will conclude its 30th year in January.

In its birthday message, the company said: “In 1984, Apple introduced the world to Macintosh. It was designed to be so easy to use that people could actually use it. And it came with a promise – that the power of technology taken from a few and put in the hands of everyone, could change the world. That promise has been kept.”

The Apple Macintosh 128k, the original Mac computer

Turning the ripe old age of 40 was Ireland’s LGBT switchboard, which originally had to be called Tel-A-Friend when it launched in 1974 because the powers-that-were prohibited the word ‘gay’ being used in the Irish telephone book.

Nowadays, the seven-days-a-week LGBT+ service offers confidential support, signposting and information over the phone and via email.

Also turning 40 this year was the Rubik’s Cube, which received an interactive tribute on the Google homepage, challenging enthusiasts and novices in a whole new way.

But the grandest anniversary marked this year was the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, prompting the realisation that there hasn’t been a manned mission beyond Earth’s orbit in almost half a century. Meanwhile, NASA’s Orion mission to get astronauts to Mars took the first steps towards rectifying that.

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Stuart Lauchlan

Stuart Lauchlan has been tracking and commenting on the enterprise IT market for 23 years during which time he’s managed to amuse, inform and irritate buy and sell side participants in equal and appropriate measure. Lauchlan also helps companies understand the needs of technology readers.

The year 2014 has been an amazing year in technology but the real newsmakers aren’t the gadgets, the breakthroughs or the apps, but the people behind them.

Lauren Boyle – for being an inspiration

Our top newsmaker of the year is 10-year-old Lauren Boyle, recently named .

The girls’ project investigated the use of diazotroph bacteria as a cereal crop germination and growth aid.

They carried out an extensive study on crops of wheat, oats and barley. Statistical analysis of their results indicated that naturally occurring Rhizobium strains of the diazotroph bacteria family accelerated germination by up to 50pc and, in the case of barley, increased yields by 74pc, which has implications for food production.

At Silicon Republic’s recent Women Invent Meet-up in November, the girls said that while they haven’t patented their idea yet, it is something that may happen.

The Collison brothers – for building a US$3.5bn empire

Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison

There has rarely been a month in 2014 where two young men from Limerick – brothers Patrick and John Collison – weren’t making headlines.

Patrick (25) and John Collison (23) were recently listed in Forbes‘ top 30 under 30 people in tech. They formed a start-up called Shuppa in 2007, which later became known as Auctomatic, attracted funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Y Combinator, and was acquired just a year later by Canadian firm Live Current Media for $5m (€3.2m) when the brothers were just 17 and 19, respectively.

Their Silicon Valley-based company now employs 120 people.

Tim Cook – for magnificent leadership at Apple

Three years after the passing of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, current CEO Tim Cook has proven all his critics wrong and has ably manned the helm of what is the world’s most valuable company, recently achieving a market capitalisation of US$700bn for the first time.

Cook has revealed himself to be a steady and confident leader capable of delivering on strategy.

Under his tutelage, the consumer tech giant this year released a bevy of new products, including the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3, as well as the stunning new iMac Retina 5K display. As well as this, Cook has led Apple’s foray into electronic payments with Apple Pay and oversaw the roll out of new operating systems iOS 8 and Mac OS X Yosemite.

His next major feat will be the launch early next year, possibly in March, of the Apple Watch, the tech giant’s first foray into wearables.

On a personal level, Cook addressed the fact he is gay in an open letter that includes his feelings about being part of a minority and said being gay is a “gift from god”.

The Pope – for being a fan of the Big Bang theory

Pope Francis

Speaking of God, his representative on Earth Pope Francis has been in the news this year for his views on matters of science and technology.

The Pope began 2014 by declaring the internet is itself a gift from God. Warning of a world where the divide between rich and poor is widening, he said digital media and the internet can be used as a force for good to close these divisions and inspire solidarity if people are prepared to listen and learn from one another.

“The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God,” the Pope said.

However, while the internet may be a gift from God, the 77-year-old leader of the Catholic Church in August publicly lamented youth’s obsession with technological instruments of distraction and advises young people to not waste so much time on the web and smartphones.

The Pope himself is no stranger to modern technology and tweets in nine different languages to about 15m followers through the Twitter handle @pontifex. Though he had described the internet as a gift of God, he later recommended a good dose of calm, reflection and tenderness to ensure it is “a network not of wires, but of people”.

This represented a considerable turnaround for a church that has for more than a century advocated for the theories of the universe’s grand design and creationism, particularly Pope Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict XVI.

U2 – for the rock gods’ gift that was too much for the internet

Rock band U2. Photo by Paolo Pellegrin

Irish rock band U2’s special deal with Apple that meant gifting the band’s new album Songs of Innocence to 500m iTunes users for free didn’t turn out exactly how frontman Bono and the lads envisaged.

Apple and U2 had collaborated to release the new album for free on 9 September to iTunes users around the world, with the option of downloading it for free up until 13 October.

However, the move prompted a bit of a backlash and disgruntled users said they weren’t happy with the band’s album being part of their music collection without their prior consent.

Within a week, Apple provided a one-click remove button to make it easier for non-fans to remove the album from their iTunes library. However, once removed, the album would no longer be available for free if users had a change of heart.

To which Bono replied, “Oops, I’m sorry about that. Had this beautiful idea, we got carried away with ourselves.”

Martin Shanahan – for grace and calm under fire

There are gods and there are men. And there are news anchors in America who need to go back to school and study geography and history.

IDA Ireland’s new CEO Martin Shanahan, who has presided over thousands of new jobs in Ireland within months of assuming his role, is among our newsmakers of the year for his grace, calm and equanimity in the face of breathtaking buffoonery.

During an appearance on US television on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Shanahan gave a good account of himself, addressing general but also some insightful and reasonable questions about Irish tax policy.

However, it was Shanahan’s bemused but polite demeanor towards the end of the interview that set him apart when one of the anchors appeared shocked that Ireland uses the euro and Shanahan had to explain that Ireland is a separate country to Britain.

He was also asked if Ireland’s corporate tax policy was a contributing factor to the country’s large number of talented golfers.

Mark Zuckerberg – for winning China in a few words

Even though Facebook is blocked in China, the social network’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg built a bridge that few US CEOs have managed by answering a couple of questions in Mandarin in October this year during a Q&A session at Tsinghua University.

In heavily accented Mandarin: “Hello, everyone,” before explaining to the rather surprised audience, “I want to study Chinese culture. Studying the language helps me study the culture. So I’m trying to learn the language. Also, I like a challenge.”

While people in China were impressed, it is understood that the level of his linguistic ability has been likened to that of a seven-year-old. But either way, he made a good impression. And that is how it is done.

Stephanie Roche – for that goal

Irish footballer Stephanie Roche’s goal for Peamount United in a game against Wexford Youths during the Bus Éireann Women’s National League on 20 October 2013 made her an online sensation in 2014.

Roche recently attracted votes from all over the world to make it to the final three in the world for goal of the year in FIFA’s Puskás Award, squaring her up against footballers James Rodriguez and Robin van Persie. The final result will be announced in January.

“When the ball came towards Peamount United forward Stephanie Roche against Wexford Youths, she had her back to goal, yet three touches later and without the ball touching the turf, it was in the back of the net. With her first touch she controlled it masterfully, before producing a dink over her marker’s head, spinning and unleashing a magnificent volley,” the FIFA website describes.

Satya Nadella – for ascending to the helm at Microsoft

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella’s rise to CEO of Microsoft and resulting impact could be described as that of a thunderbolt. He has begun the process of building Windows 10, he has opened up Microsoft’s ecosystem to bring popular apps, such as Word, for free to iOS and Android, and he has begun a restructuring that will reduce the size of Microsoft by 14pc.

However, this thunderbolt appeared to hang suspended in mid-air in recent months, when he made an infamous gaffe by suggesting female tech workers should trust karma for a pay raise.

Nadella was speaking at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Phoenix, Arizona, on 9 October and had answered a question about female tech workers seeking pay raises.

In a tech world reeling from the realisation that ‘brogrammer’ culture has gone too far and greater diversity and sensitivity is required in the industry, Nadella’s comments went down like a lead balloon.

Nadella swiftly apologised and described his comments as inarticulate.

The gaffe has however, resulted in some positive action, with Nadella outlining a new diversity plan and more positive changes at Microsoft. He described the episode as a “humbling and learning experience”.

Meg Whitman – for splitting HP in two

HP’s CEO Meg Whitman deserves a special mention in dispatches for deciding on a course of action that has eluded her predecessors.

Whitman has taken the bold step of dividing HP into two companies: Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, which will focus on servers and software, and HP Inc, a PC and printing company.

Whitman is to be president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise; Pat Russo is to be chairman of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Board.

HP, one of the biggest tech companies on the planet, has lurched from one corporate crisis to another and one leadership succession after another.

The year 2015 will be the first year that these two entities will come into being. Let’s hope Whitman’s decisive action will end a run of bad luck for one of the founding giants of Silicon Valley.

Liam Casey – for building a US$1bn tech giant and kickstarting hardware hackathons in Ireland

PCH CEO Liam Casey

Hardware renaissance man Liam Casey is pressing ahead with building a US$1bn a year (by revenue) technology giant and he has become the go-to guy in Silicon Valley for making the visions of entrepreneurs and tech giants alike come to life in vivid detail.

This year Casey brought not one, but two Hardware Hackathons to Dublin, unleashing a wave of creativity and entrepreneurialism in time for what could be a new industrial age.

He has also established design labs and prototyping facilities in San Francisco and Asia, as well as securing distribution deals with retailers, such as Radio Shack, to ensure new hardware emerges from the start-up and re-emerges on shop shelves.

If you look closely at Casey’s modus operandi, you’ll realise he wants to make it easier and more comprehensive for hardware entrepreneurs to get their products to market.

But that doesn’t make it less risky. “If we can take the risk out of it and create a secure channel for the entrepreneurs, it means they can put the focus back on the creativity,” he said in an interview this year. “You have to be protective of the innovators, because that’s where the magic is.”

Christian Bale – for bailing on the role of a lifetime

Christian Bale was an unusual feature of tech news coverage this year mainly because he had been tipped to play Steve Jobs in a biopic based on the book by Walter Isaacson.

At first Bale was confirmed for the role in a movie scripted by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle.

However, weeks later Bale bailed on the opportunity without any reason given, except he no longer wanted to play the co-founder and former CEO of Apple.

The movie, which is also understood to have hired Seth Rogan to play Steve Wozniak, was subsequently dropped by Sony.

However, the movie may be reprised by Universal Studios, which purchased the rights to the biopic.

Sexist Barbie – for her book ‘I Can Be a Computer Engineer’

All that is wrong with the tech industry can be summed up in the storm that accompanied revelations of the existence of a Barbie book entitled I Can be a Computer Engineer, chock-full of stereotypes and sexist nonsense and assumptions of women in technology.

Toy maker Mattel was forced to apologise for the book’s existence after writer Pamela Ribbon penned a scathing critique of the book, pointing out that, despite the title, Barbie actually just comes up with “design ideas” (such as drawing puppies) and needs the help of two guys named Steven and Brian to do the real programming work.

The article sparked the fury of the internet, with many Twitter users taking to the social network to call Barbie manufacturer Mattel out on the piece. The website Feminist Hacker Barbie has also been established to allow people to rewrite the book.

Taylor Swift – for sounding a bum note about streaming

It’s not every year that a pop star gets to shake the tech industry to its core and this year it was Taylor Swift who was to prove the exception. Swift caused a flurry of soul-searching about the future of music and the roles played by streaming platforms such as Spotify when she removed her entire music catalogue from the service.

“Music is art, and art is important and rare,” she wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.”

Her move took Spotify off guard. But Spotify CEO Daniel Ek pointed out that the service has generated US$2bn in revenues for labels, publishers and artists, and said Swift herself earned US$2bn out of the deal.

“Any way you cut it, one thing is clear – we’re paying an enormous amount of money to labels and publishers for distribution to artists and songwriters, and significantly more than any other streaming service,” Ek said.

John Bell – for challenging Einstein

The achievements of one John Bell (1928-1990) were marked this year in Ireland for the Belfast physicist’s achievements in challenging Einstein and breathing a new life into quantum physics.

Bell’s theorem opened the way for research leading to quantum computing and cryptography.

His achievements were honoured this year across Northern Ireland.

Bill Gates – for wanting to cure malaria and keep the lights on

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates

Despite remaining the world’s richest man, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has the whole world on his mind and he is tackling the world’s problems one step at a time.

Gates was in the news this year for championing a number of causes, most notably his efforts to see the end of malaria in his lifetime. Gates is preparing to push the malaria programme budget of his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to more than US$200m per year – a 30pc increase. This includes plans to develop a vaccine to combat the disease. In all, the foundation will spend more than US$500m this year to fight various parasitic diseases in poor countries, including pneumonia and diarrheal.

Gates is also investigating the potential of cold fusion technology as a way of solving the world’s energy problems.

“I’m optimistic that science and technology can point the way to big breakthroughs in clean energy and help us meet the world’s growing needs,” said Gates. “In this area, like so many, there are no quick fixes, which makes it even more urgent to start work now.”

Whatever problems Gates turns his hand to, he has plenty of cash to throw at them. Gates, who has a net worth of US$78.2bn, would need to spend US$1m a day for 218 years before he runs out of money, according to Oxfam.

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Janine Milne

Janine Milne has been studying HCM, talent management and training for more than 20 years, both as a freelancer and in-house editor. She has written extensively on topics that include leadership, psychometric testing, mentoring, creating an effective team, managing international project teams and e-learning.

Once again we had a year of global (and local) events and discussions prompting new memes and side-splitting online content that made the internet a funnier place.

5. #SochiProblems

As members of the media descended upon the Russian city of Sochi for the XXII Winter Olympics, it was clear that concerns about the location’s readiness for the international event were well-founded. The hashtag #SochiProblems inspired a new Twitter account that, after only three days, attracted more than 200,000 followers.

@SochiProblems tracked the broken, busted and baffling things journalists encountered while covering the Winter Olympics, though a lack of attribution in some cases meant that the account was best enjoyed with a side of scepticism.

Of course, this wasn’t the only meme to be spawned by the 2014 Winter Olympics, which also gave us Ashley Wagner’s anger, the Shoshi Games for fans of Girls, and ‘Quinning’, the practice of resolving problems through excessive force, inspired by this tweet from US Olympic bobsledder Johnny Quinn.

4. Water charges

The introduction of water charges in Ireland has been an issue of much consternation throughout 2014. But with controversy comes a touch of comedy and, in true Irish style, residents found a way to laugh through the tears (which will henceforth be stowed away in a reservoir).

3. FIFA World Cup 2014

There’s nothing like an international competitive event to inspire sheer hordes of memes, tonnes of trends and rampant online chatter.

2. No Oscar for Leo

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio may have lost out on an Academy Award for his performance in The Wolf of Wall Street this year, but he’s a winner when it comes to inspiring memes on the subject.

1. RKO out of nowhere

Sometimes a viral video sparks a trend of imitators (remember the Harlem Shake?) and, this year, a new video-based meme was born with WWE wrestler Randy Orton running amok across YouTube, Facebook and Vine, taking anyone and everyone down with his signature move, the RKO – out of nowhere! It’s silly, but it works every time.

A space elevator, a proposal involving 99 iPhone 6s and a photo of a napping burglar posted to Facebook stand out among the most unusual tech stories of the past year.

Limerick City installs audio reminders to pick up after your dog

In March, dog owners and walkers who take Fido for a stroll along either side of the River Shannon in Limerick City learned they , a full unit of the local police force raided the house from where the IP was located and officers seized all electronic devices in the house.

The only person in the house at the time was 27-year-old Michelle Pratt, who denied any link to the account.

Two other residents from the house were arrested and charged on drug offences arising from the search.

According to US law, false personation of a public official is a Class A misdemeanour punishable by a fine of up to US$2,500 and even up to one year in jail.

#hummuselfie aims to give #chickpeace a chance in Mideast

The Hummus Initiative was behind the campaign on the social network to “fight against further importation of the hatred of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into France and other countries outside of Israel and Gaza.”

The Facebook page had attracted nearly 5,000 likes at time of writing and contained plenty of photos of people who have taken part in the campaign.

What was noticeable is many people in the #hummuselfie photos are smiling and larking about, in what is intended to shed light on a conflict that has killed some 1,864 people, including 300 children.

It has been a momentous year in space exploration and thankfully cameras and telescopes both here and on Earth were able to capture events including Philae’s landing on comet 67P and amazing shots of Earth from the ground and in space.

Rosetta/Philae mission

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) 10-year Rosetta mission has produced some of the most amazing photography of the year as a result of the monumental achievement of landing a probe onto a comet hurtling through space at thousands of kilometres per hour.

More people tweeted during the descent of the Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae lander onto comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko than they did about a certain celebrity’s posterior in a major win for space science and our sense of wonder about the universe.

The first amazing image to be taken, and featured as a Siliconrepublic.com Gigglebit, was Rosetta‘s ‘selfie’ with the comet, taken just prior to the launch of the Philae lander.

The image that features an ultra-cool black and white colouring was shared hundreds of thousands of times on social media and rightly so.

Image via ESA

Despite its landing not going exactly according to plan, Philae was able to gather enough scientific data by drilling into the comet’s surface and begin the process of sending information back to Earth before it entered its hibernation until next spring, when its solar panels are to once again receive energy.

This shot shows the first panoramic image captured by Philae as it touched down on the comet’s surface.

Image via ESA

Jack-o-lantern solar flares

Almost as if it knew Halloween was just around the corner, US space agency NASA’s observatory satellite, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), captured a series of photos on 8 October that appeared to show the sun forming a jack-o-lantern face as a result of solar activity on its surface.

To get the ‘pumpkin sun’ image, NASA blended together two different wavelengths of light, specifically at 171 angstroms and 193 angstroms, which appear as gold and yellow and thus created the image’s distinctive creepy, orange appearance.

Image via NASA/GSFC/SDO

Osuga Valles, Mars

Last April, the ESA showcased one of its latest stunning visuals of a false-colour of Mars’ surface, in a region known as Osuga Valles. The region is one of the most visibly affected by ancient waterways and at a total length of 164 km is some 170 km south of Eos Chaos, which lies in the far eastern section of Valles Marineris.

The ESA believes the region was heavily flooded during some point in its history, creating the deep crevices that have scarred the Martian rock.

This particular colour-coded topography map of the central portion of Osuga Valles indicates that the white and red are the highest terrains, while blue and purple show the deepest areas.

Image via ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Saturn’s ‘odd trio’

Saturn’s orbit is a rather busy place, given that for our moon, the ringed planet has 61 more satellites of varying sizes orbiting at any one time, not to mention the billions of smaller particles that form its distinctive ring.

However, three of these moons in particular have been dubbed the ‘odd trio’ because of the degree of difference between them. They are Tethys, Hyperion and Prometheus.

Tethys is the largest of the three moons and is the centrepiece of the photograph. Tethys has a varied terrain, whereas Hyperion is called the ‘wild one’ for its dangerously chaotic spin.

Meanwhile, little Prometheus circles just on the outer edge of Saturn’s rings in the image.

What makes this image so unique is that the three moons are rarely captured in the same image. The Cassini spacecraft captured this image at a distance of about 1.9m km from Tethys.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Panoramic view of Orion Nebula

Twenty-four years after it was first launched into orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope is still going strong, sending back stunning images of distant galaxies to those of us on Earth.

One of this year’s most beautiful images captured by the telescope is that of the Orion Nebula, a system containing as many as 3,000 stars both old and young, which reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains and valleys.

Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five colours, to make this picture, adding ground-based photos to fill out the nebula.

The Orion Nebula is the nearest star-forming region to Earth, 1,500 light years away.

Hubble captures Siding Spring comet

Sticking with Hubble’s amazing photography, another entry to this year’s round-up of some of the best space images is a comet traversing our solar system, Siding Spring. The comet has been named after the observatory in Australia that discovered the hurtling chunk of space debris.

While not in the same league as say, Halley’s Comet, Siding Spring was still visible to observatories and those with powerful enough telescopes.

This particular image of Siding Spring shows the eerie aura that surrounds it as its surface of ice evaporates.

Oh, and if you didn’t notice, that’s Mars sitting in the centre foreground as the comet sailed by our nearest neighbour.

A Chinese take on ‘the pale blue dot’

Renowned and beloved astronomer Carl Sagan once compared the site of the Earth from a distance to a “pale blue dot”, on an otherwise pitch-black background.

In 2014, China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission that sent a probe into space as part of an engineering test showed an Earth dwarfed by the moon, given its close proximity to our satellite.

The mission that lasted only eight days saw the craft return to Earth on 31 October. Hope are that the data obtained from this test mission will pave the way for Chang’e 5 mission that aims to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon, collect samples, and return them to Earth.

Image via Chinese National Space Administration, Xinhuanet

‘Speechless’ image of Earth from space

Joining the current batch of famous astronauts including Chris Hadfield, Reid Wiseman during his time in the International Space Station provided a daily look inside the largest man-made object currently orbiting the Earth, showed us the wonders of physics in space, as well as images of Earth from way up high.

One in particular that caught many people’s attention was featured in a tweet that asked, “What is the twitter version of speechless?” The photo taken above Egypt features clear, blue skies and even bluer seas.

Reign of the ‘blood moon’

And last, but certainly not least, was one of the thousands of images captured by people in Asia and North America during this year’s strongest lunar eclipse on 8 October.

More commonly known as a ‘blood moon’, the distinctive colour that gives the blood moon its name happens when the remaining sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere is scattered, eliminating all but red as the remaining colour seen on the moon’s surface.

People in Ireland were unable to view the spectacular sight and will have to wait until 20 March 2015 for the next opportunity.

Image via John W. Johnson of the Omaha Astronomical Society in Nebraska in the United States